DCS should stop stonewalling court and people

Jun. 26, 2013

OUR VIEW

“You find this court a commissioner or assistant commissioner, someone big enough to tell me they are the ones who didn’t follow the order,” Chancellor Carol McCoy told lawyers representing the Department of Children Services on Wednesday. “I need the name of the person responsible … someone who needs to sit in the pokey.”

In a rare example of judicial tongue-lashing, McCoy said in the latest hearing on public access to the records of children who died, or nearly died, after contact with DCS, what many have been thinking as the department reluctantly released records with random, arbitrary, inconsistent and heavy-handed redactions of information that seems designed more to protect the behinds of government staff than to let Tennesseans know what has been happening in the troubled department that is charged with protecting the state’s most vulnerable children.

McCoy reacted harshly to the department’s release of a second batch of records that reflected a dramatically different approach to censoring the information available to the public, as represented by a consortium of Tennessee media companies that filed suit against DCS to gain access to the records.

Doug Dimond, the chief DCS lawyer, tried to deflect McCoy’s frustration with the department’s interpretation of her order by saying, “We’re not trying to play hide the ball here,” and emphasizing the sensitivity of the information in the records.

It is a blinding glimpse of the obvious that the information is sensitive, but to whom, we ask?

No member of the media is out to hurt a family member, or to use the details of the deaths in a prurient manner, but absent clear understanding of what happened in the tragic deaths of these children how can the public have any confidence in the department’s policies, processes and procedures?

DCS digs a deeper hole with every attempt to hide its shortcomings from the public; McCoy has called them onto her carpet, and, hopefully, Commissioner Jim Henry and Gov. Bill Haslam will heed her warning. Tennesseans want to be a part of fixing the problem, not fighting with our government over access to exercise that desire.

DCS needs to stop deluding itself, blaming “the media” and hiding behind magic markers, and take heed of its need for help. It is too late for too many, and none of us wants the onus of not doing everything we can for these children.

An earlier version of this editorial misspelled the name of Doug Dimond.